It is known that momentary periods of silence exist during normal conversations. For example, in a question and answer session, there is usually a period of silence that occurs between the end of a question the answer provided thereto. Furthermore, periods of silence can also occur during normal conversation between two or more parties. Accordingly, this momentary silence is more or less expected is normal situations.
It is also known that in some situations (which fall outside the realm of a normal conversation) unusually long periods of silence can be introduced where otherwise normal periods of silence would occur. For example, when a conversation is occurring over a great distance, such as via a satellite link, the propagation delay associated with the transmission of audio from a local site to a remote site coupled with the propagation of audio information from the remote site back to the local site can introduce such long periods of silence. These long periods of silence during the conversation can become awkward and unproductive as the participants may be unsure as to how long to wait before speaking again.
It is known to address the situation discussed above by recording an entire conversation in a medium which can allow “off-line” editing to reduce the amount of silence present in the conversation. For example, a question and answer session conducted by via satellite can be recorded on audiotape whereupon the recording can be edited to reduce any silence between the questions and answers. However, this approach may not be feasible when the session is to be carried out in real-time or near real-time.